2 domains pointing to same folder -> bad idea?

Hello,

I have a niche site and two alternative domain names. The domains refer to two searched keywords but it would make more sense to have them under the same blog rather than make two blogs.

I though it would be good to make just one blog and point them to the same folder in cPanel, so that there is the same content in either of them and I could see which domain name perform better. However, I've also read a lot about penalizing duplicate content. I do have another site that is 100% duplicated content (the purpose is not the content itself but a notification for new content that the original site doesnt offer) and I do get a fair amount of traffic.

So what is your idea? Is pointing to the same folder a bad idea? Any alternative method to see which domain would perform better without having to write two articles every time?

 

I think you are better off setting up two actual sites. You have two chances to win this way, but you have to build links to both sites.

 

I think it's a good idea as long as you can track where the traffic is coming from domain and keyword. The SEO gets a little more complex. I have not used this method, but I have cloned WordPress sites to run with another domain name. In one case the cloned site totally outperformed the original site just based on the domain name.

 

I don't see why having multiple domains pointing to the same location is a bad idea. Personally, I would write a quick script that would "re-brand" the website based on the incoming domain name while recording hits or whatever type of stats you are looking for organized by incoming domain. It could be as simple as changing the site header or more complex like changing the entire theme.

Here's some pseudo-code which you would just plop into a common file that is used on all pages.

If ( site_name == 'site1' ) then
  Check session/cookie to see if user has already been recorded
  if ( not recorded ) then
    record hit in database
    Set site header, title, h1 tags, etc.
  end
else if ( site_name == 'site2' ) then
  Check session/cookie to see if user has already been recorded
  if ( not recorded ) then
    record hit in database
    Set site header, title, h1, etc
  end
end 

Code (markup):

This would give you a unique hit counter per domain AND give you a little customization based on the incoming domain name.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,
John